tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86397343202503571172018-02-12T12:36:06.603-05:00Women StateAmarissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05981189355159260725noreply@blogger.comBlogger3536125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639734320250357117.post-53507895488668726302018-01-08T13:33:00.000-05:002018-01-30T11:06:32.668-05:00oprah#2020<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jJPUKvoIsBI/WnCX_h5vHAI/AAAAAAAAFXM/dOc-HWludfIotPiol8tv_U3RBneY5tikACLcBGAs/s1600/oprah-winfrey-golden-globe-awards-rt-mem-180108_16x9t_240.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="135" data-original-width="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jJPUKvoIsBI/WnCX_h5vHAI/AAAAAAAAFXM/dOc-HWludfIotPiol8tv_U3RBneY5tikACLcBGAs/s1600/oprah-winfrey-golden-globe-awards-rt-mem-180108_16x9t_240.jpg" /></a></div><br />With her spine-tingling Golden Globes speech on Sunday night, Oprah Winfrey lit up the room and social media. Without mentioning President Trump or anything overtly political, she delivered an inspirational stemwinder:<br /><blockquote class="citation">What I know for sure is that speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we all have. And I’m especially proud [of] and inspired by all the women who have felt strong enough and empowered enough to speak up and share their personal stories. Each of us in this room is celebrated because of the stories that we tell, and this year we&nbsp;<i>became&nbsp;</i>the story.</blockquote>She paddled against the tide of self-pity, sectarianism, resentment and meanness that characterizes politics in the age of Trump. Her message was that we are all in this together. She said the story of workplace abuse is universal:<br /><blockquote class="citation">It’s not just a story affecting the entertainment industry. It’s one that transcends any culture, geography, race, religion, politics or workplace. So I want tonight to express gratitude to all the women who have endured years of abuse and assault because they, like my mother, had children to feed and bills to pay and dreams to pursue. They’re the women whose names we’ll never know. They are domestic workers and farmworkers. They are working in factories, and they work in restaurants, and they’re in academia, engineering, medicine and science. They’re part of the world of tech and politics and business. They’re our athletes in the Olympics, and they’re our soldiers in the military.</blockquote>She ended with the sort of self-affirming optimism that has made her a star. “I’ve interviewed and portrayed people who’ve withstood some of the ugliest things life can throw at you, but the one quality all of them seem to share is an ability to maintain hope for a brighter morning, even during our darkest nights,” she said. “So I want all the girls watching here, now, to know that a new day is on the horizon! And when that new day finally dawns, it will be because of a lot of magnificent women, many of whom are right here in this room tonight, and some pretty phenomenal men, fighting hard to make sure that they become the leaders who take us to the time when nobody ever has to say ‘Me too’ again.” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2018/01/08/oprah-winfrey-gives-a-master-class-for-2020-candidates/?utm_term=.0c58a0bbe1dd" target="_blank">(Washington Post)</a>Amarissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05981189355159260725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639734320250357117.post-70439929424597076112017-12-13T21:21:00.000-05:002017-12-13T21:21:26.221-05:00A president who'd all but call a senator a whore is unfit to clean toilets in Obama's presidential library or to shine George W. Bush's shoesWith his latest tweet, clearly implying that a United States senator would trade sexual favors for campaign cash,&nbsp;President Trump has shown he is not fit for office. Rock bottom is&nbsp;no impediment for a president who can always find room for a new low.<br /><br /><div class="EmbeddedTweet EmbeddedTweet--edge js-clickToOpenTarget tweet-InformationCircle-widgetParent" data-click-to-open-target="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/940567812053053441" data-dt-abbr="%{number}%{symbol}" data-dt-am="AM" data-dt-explicit-timestamp="8:03 AM - Dec 12, 2017" data-dt-full="%{hours12}:%{minutes} %{amPm} - %{day} %{month} %{year}" data-dt-h="h" data-dt-hour="hour" data-dt-hours="hours" data-dt-long="%{day} %{month} %{year}" data-dt-m="m" data-dt-minute="minute" data-dt-minutes="minutes" data-dt-months="Jan|Feb|Mar|Apr|May|Jun|Jul|Aug|Sep|Oct|Nov|Dec" data-dt-now="now" data-dt-pm="PM" data-dt-s="s" data-dt-second="second" data-dt-seconds="seconds" data-dt-short="%{day} %{month}" data-iframe-title="Twitter Tweet" data-scribe="page:tweet" data-twitter-event-id="0" id="twitter-widget-0" lang="en"> <div class="EmbeddedTweet-tweet"> <blockquote cite="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/940567812053053441" class="Tweet h-entry js-tweetIdInfo subject expanded is-deciderHtmlWhitespace" data-scribe="section:subject" data-tweet-id="940567812053053441"> <div class="Tweet-header u-cf"> <div class="Tweet-brand u-floatRight"> <a data-scribe="element:logo" href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/940567812053053441"><span class="FollowButton-bird"></span></a> </div><div class="TweetAuthor js-inViewportScribingTarget" data-scribe="component:author"> <a class="TweetAuthor-link Identity u-linkBlend" data-scribe="element:user_link" href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump"> <span class="TweetAuthor-avatar Identity-avatar"> <img alt="" class="Avatar Avatar--edge" data-scribe="element:avatar" data-src-1x="https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/874276197357596672/kUuht00m_normal.jpg" data-src-2x="https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/874276197357596672/kUuht00m_bigger.jpg" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/874276197357596672/kUuht00m_normal.jpg" /> </span> <span class="TweetAuthor-decoratedName"> <span class="TweetAuthor-name Identity-name customisable-highlight" data-scribe="element:name" title="Donald J. Trump">Donald J. Trump</span> <span class="TweetAuthor-verifiedBadge" data-scribe="element:verified_badge"><b class="u-hiddenVisually">✔</b></span> </span> <span class="TweetAuthor-screenName Identity-screenName" data-scribe="element:screen_name" dir="ltr" title="@realDonaldTrump">@realDonaldTrump</span> </a></div></div><div class="Tweet-body e-entry-content" data-scribe="component:tweet"> <div class="Tweet-text e-entry-title" dir="ltr" lang="en">Lightweight Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a total flunky for Chuck Schumer and someone who would come to my office “begging” for campaign contributions not so long ago (and would do anything for them), is now in the ring fighting against Trump. Very disloyal to Bill &amp; Crooked-USED!</div></div></blockquote><div class="speakable-p-2 p-text">White House spokeswoman&nbsp;Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Tuesday&nbsp;dismissed the president's smear as a misunderstanding because he used similar language about men. Of course, words used about men and women are different. When candidate Trump said a journalist was bleeding from her "wherever," he didn't mean her nose.&nbsp;&nbsp;</div>&nbsp;</div><div class="EmbeddedTweet-tweet">And as is the case with all of <a href="http://www.trumptwitterarchive.com/archive">Trump's digital provocations</a>, the president's words were deliberate. He pours the gasoline of sexist language and lights the match gleefully knowing how it will burst into flame in a country reeling from the #MeToo moment.</div><div class="EmbeddedTweet-tweet"><br />A president who would all but call Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand a whore is not fit to clean the toilets in the Barack Obama Presidential Library or to shine the shoes of George W. Bush.<br /><br /><div class="p-text">This isn’t about the policy differences we have with all presidents or our&nbsp;disappointment in some of their decisions. Obama and Bush both failed in many ways. They broke promises and told untruths, but the&nbsp;basic decency of each man was never in doubt.&nbsp;&nbsp;</div><div class="p-text"><br /></div><div class="p-text">Donald Trump, the man, on the other hand,&nbsp;is uniquely awful. His sickening behavior is corrosive to the enterprise of a shared governance based on common values and the consent of the governed.</div><div class="p-text"><br /></div><div class="p-text">It should surprise no one how low he went with Gillibrand. When accused during the campaign of sexually harassing or molesting women in the past, Trump’s response was to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/10/14/trump-mocks-sexual-assault-accuser-she-would-not-be-my-first-choice/?utm_term=.5d3f5fea63ce">belittle the looks of his accusers</a>. Last October,&nbsp;Trump suggested that he never would have groped Jessica Leeds on an airplane decades ago:&nbsp;“Believe me, she would not be my first choice, that I can tell you.” Trump mocked another accuser, former <em>People</em>&nbsp;reporter Natasha Stoynoff, “Check out her Facebook, you’ll understand.”&nbsp; Other celebrities and politicians have denied accusations, but none has stooped as low as suggesting that their accusers weren’t attractive enough to be honored with their gropes.</div><div class="p-text"><br /></div><div class="p-text">If recent history is any guide, the unique awfulness of the Trump era in U.S. politics is only going to get worse. Trump’s utter lack of morality, ethics&nbsp;and simple humanity&nbsp;has been underscored during his 11 months in office. Let us count the ways:</div><div class="p-text"><a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/12/12/trump-lows-ever-hit-rock-bottom-editorials-debates/945947001/" target="_blank">(Continues at USA Today) </a></div></div></div>Amarissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05981189355159260725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639734320250357117.post-35314733599317219642017-11-08T09:26:00.000-05:002017-11-08T09:26:57.001-05:00Democrats win from coast to coastA year after suffering perhaps the most demoralizing defeat in modern political history, Democrats roared back on Tuesday, claiming big victories in races up and down the ballot and across the country.<br /><br />The breadth of the Democratic wins surprised even the most optimistic party stalwarts, who worried over their own chances in key races Tuesday. But as the results rolled in, those Democrats said they had energized their core voters and capitalized on President Trump's unpopularity to reach swing voters.<br /><br />"This is not a wave. This is a tsunami," Virginia Del. David Toscano, leader of the Democratic caucus, told The Hill in an interview Tuesday night. "This is a huge, huge sea change here in Virginia."<br /><br />Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam (D) won the Virginia governorship by a wider-than-expected margin, even with Democrats fretting about his late campaign strategy. Democrat Justin Fairfax won the lieutenant governor's office, becoming only the second African American to win a statewide post in Virginia since Reconstruction, while Attorney General Mark Herring (D) won re-election.<br /><br />More astonishingly, Democrats appeared to have captured at least a share of control of the state House of Delegates, erasing what had been a massive Republican majority. Democrats picked up 16<br /><br />Republican-held seats, giving them control of 50 out of the 100 seats in the lower chamber, with three more GOP-held districts likely headed for recounts.<br /><br />In New Jersey, former Goldman Sachs executive Phil Murphy (D) easily won the right to replace deeply unpopular Gov. Chris Christie (R), cementing Democratic control in the Garden State.<br /><br />In Washington state, Democrat Manka Dhingra (D) appeared headed for victory in a special election to fill an open state Senate seat. Dhingra's win in a formerly Republican district would give Democrats control of all levers of government in the Evergreen State.<br /><br />Georgia Democrats celebrated winning two deep red districts in special state House elections. Two Democrats appear likely to face off in a runoff in a suburban Atlanta state Senate district formerly held by a Republican after finishing first and second in the all-party primary — a result that would break the GOP's supermajority.<br /><br />Democrats added to their majority in the New Jersey state Senate, and picked up two additional state Assembly seats.<br /><br />The party won a GOP-held seat in the New Hampshire state House, too.<br /><br />Even local elections tipped left on Tuesday. In St. Petersburg, Fla., Mayor Rick Kriseman won re-election, after campaigning with former Vice President <span class="rollover-people" data-behavior="rolloverpeople"><a class="rollover-people-link" data-nid="188332" href="http://thehill.com/people/joe-biden">Joe Biden</a></span> and other Democratic stalwarts, over former Mayor Rick Baker in an upset in a race in which early polls showed Baker leading.<br /><br />In Manchester, N.H., Joyce Craig became the first woman to win the mayor's office, and the first Democrat to win the city since 2003, after she ousted four-term incumbent Ted Gatsas (R). <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/359310-dems-win-from-coast-to-coast" target="_blank">(continues)</a><br />Amarissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05981189355159260725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639734320250357117.post-52312065454161190072017-10-01T12:50:00.001-04:002017-10-01T12:51:08.476-04:00Top general calls damage in Puerto Rico ‘the worst he’s ever seen’<span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;;">Lt. Gen. Jeffrey S. Buchanan, the Department of Defense’s primary military liaison with FEMA, toured the damage in Puerto Rico for the first time Saturday during a helicopter ride from San Juan to Ceiba. After landing at a hangar in Ceiba with no power, internet or cellular service, Buchanan spoke with the PBS NewsHour’s Monica Villamizar.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;;">“Sometimes we don’t know what’s going to happen until the storm actually hits, and this is the worst I’ve ever seen,” Buchanan said. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;times new roman&quot;;">The trip occurred hours after President Donald Trump criticized San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz for “poor leadership” after she spoke of devastation and “horror” on the island in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria and pleaded for help and support from the government. “We are dying here,” she said during a news conference Friday.&nbsp;</span><br /><a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/first-tour-puerto-rico-top-general-calls-damage-worst-hes-ever-seen/#.WdBm3ENl9Jc.twitter" target="_blank"><br /></a><a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/first-tour-puerto-rico-top-general-calls-damage-worst-hes-ever-seen/#.WdBm3ENl9Jc.twitter" target="_blank">See PBS full article with video</a>Amarissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05981189355159260725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639734320250357117.post-4375242210979236012017-09-24T12:46:00.001-04:002017-09-24T12:47:29.249-04:00HOW TO HELP PUERTO RICO AFTER HURRICANE MARIAPuerto Rico was impacted by Hurricane Irma just weeks earlier, but suffered immense destruction from Maria. The First Lady of Puerto Rico, Beatriz Rosselló, <a href="http://unidosporpuertorico.com/en/"><span style="color: #0f65ef;">launched an emergency fund</span></a>, in association with major companies in the private sector such as Coca-Cola and Walmart.<br /><br />The Hispanic Federation, a major Latino not-for-profit, <a href="http://hispanicfederation.org/media/press_releases/a_hurricane_relief_fund_for_hurricane_maria_victims_in_puerto_rico/"><span style="color: #0f65ef;">launched an emergency fund</span></a> for Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic in light of Hurricane Maria, backed by local New York City politicians.<br /><br />AmeriCares is <a href="https://secure.americares.org/site/Donation2?df_id=22510&amp;mfc_pref=T&amp;22510.donation=form1"><span style="color: #0f65ef;">raising money to send medical supplies</span></a> to Puerto Rico.<br /><br />All Hands Volunteers has <a href="https://www.hands.org/projects/hurricane-irma-maria-response/"><span style="color: #0f65ef;">sent teams of volunteers</span></a> to the British Virgin Islands, which was affected by both Maria and Irma.<br /><br /><h3>4. <u>Help long-term rebuilding</u></h3><h3></h3><h3></h3>The non-profit organization <a href="http://www.conprmetidos.org/">ConPRmetidos</a>, a non-partisan Puerto Rican not-for-profit launched <a href="https://www.generosity.com/emergencies-fundraising/maria-puerto-rico-real-time-recovery-fund">an emergency recovery fund</a> for Puerto Ricans affected by Maria and Irma, with all money going to long-term relief, "such as rebuilding houses according to safety codes or giving energy generators for common areas in disconnected communities."<br /><br /><a href="http://www.losambulantes.com/help-puerto-rico/">Los Ambulantes</a> provides extensive information on charities accepting donations and volunteering options, including the Surge Capacity Force, which is open to US government employees to assist with rebuilding Puerto Rico infrastructure and administration.<br /><br /><h3><u>5. Join Puerto Rican celebrities</u></h3><h3></h3>Lin Manuel-Miranda, creator of the musical Hamilton, is <a href="https://twitter.com/Lin_Manuel/status/911330668025712640">penning a benefit song</a>. Puerto Rican singer Ricky Martin donated $100,000 and <a href="https://www.youcaring.com/peopleofpuertorico-957793">launched his own fundraising page</a>. Rapper Daddy Yankee is <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/davidmack/hurricane-maria-la-perla-despacito-san-juan-puerto-rico?utm_term=.iiAa1ldMo#.oubQJz3Zx">collecting donations and supplies at his concerts</a> in New York and Chicago, while his "Despacito" co-star Luis Fonsi also <a href="http://unidosporpuertorico.com/en/">encouraged fans to donate to United for Puerto Rico</a>.<br /><br /><h3><u>DONATE GOODS:</u></h3><h3>&nbsp;</h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KMCaJ8Ph4WE/WcfgzFu4kYI/AAAAAAAAFVk/EP37UbBFs1QSR2P0cY8cbPddlT-6JbO9gCLcBGAs/s1600/2017-09-24_121540.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="311" data-original-width="623" height="159" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KMCaJ8Ph4WE/WcfgzFu4kYI/AAAAAAAAFVk/EP37UbBFs1QSR2P0cY8cbPddlT-6JbO9gCLcBGAs/s320/2017-09-24_121540.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/amberjamieson/how-to-help-after-maria?utm_term=.sgQOMAlzO#.eqMX5YVOX" target="_blank">&nbsp;Keep Reading to help others affected by hurricanes</a><br /><br /><h3>&nbsp;</h3>Amarissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05981189355159260725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639734320250357117.post-89046637775186614702017-07-29T16:11:00.000-04:002017-07-29T16:11:26.249-04:00Noonan: Trump Is Woody Allen Without the HumorThe president’s primary problem as a leader is not that he is impetuous, brash or naive. It’s not that he is inexperienced, crude, an outsider. It is that he is weak and sniveling. It is that he undermines himself almost daily by ignoring traditional norms and forms of American masculinity.<br /> <br />He’s not strong and self-controlled, not cool and tough, not low-key and determined; he’s whiny, weepy and self-pitying. He throws himself, sobbing, on the body politic. He’s a drama queen. It was once said, sarcastically, of George H.W. Bush that he reminded everyone of her first husband. Trump must remind people of their first wife. Actually his wife, Melania, is tougher than he is with her stoicism and grace, her self-discipline and desire to show the world respect by presenting herself with dignity.<br /> <br />Half the president’s tweets show utter weakness. They are plaintive, shrill little cries, usually just after dawn. “It’s very sad that Republicans, even some that were carried over the line on my back, do very little to protect their president.” The brutes. Actually they’ve been laboring to be loyal to him since Inauguration Day. “The Republicans never discuss how good their health care bill is.” True, but neither does Mr. Trump, who seems unsure of its content. In just the past two weeks, of the press, he complained: “Every story/opinion, even if should be positive, is bad!” Journalists produce “highly slanted &amp; even fraudulent reporting.” They are “DISTORTING DEMOCRACY.” They “fabricate the facts.”<br /><br />It’s all whimpering accusation and finger-pointing: <em>Nobody’s nice to me. Why don’t they appreciate me? </em><br /> <br />His public brutalizing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions isn’t strong, cool and deadly; it’s limp, lame and blubbery. “Sessions has taken a VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes,” he tweeted this week. Talk about projection.<br /><br />He told the Journal’s Michael C. Bender he is disappointed in Mr. Sessions and doesn’t feel any particular loyalty toward him. “He was a senator, he looks at 40,000 people and he probably says, ‘What do I have to lose?’ And he endorsed me. So it’s not like a great loyal thing about the endorsement.” Actually, Mr. Sessions supported him early and put his personal credibility on the line. In Politico, John J. Pitney Jr. of Claremont McKenna College writes: “Loyalty is about strength. It is about sticking with a person, a cause, an idea or a country even when it is costly, difficult or unpopular.” A strong man does that. A weak one would unleash his resentments and derive sadistic pleasure from their unleashing.... <a href="https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/trump-is-woody-allen-without-the-humor-1501193193" target="_blank">(Continues at WSJ)</a><br />Amarissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05981189355159260725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639734320250357117.post-63153727916725187542017-07-28T17:51:00.002-04:002017-07-28T17:51:25.370-04:00John McCain, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski say NO to repeal!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yP5oiId6V0s/WXuwwEJq8pI/AAAAAAAAFVA/HVZtYGhBzIIfkH1rR9H5UcQ8LRADkiIPQCLcBGAs/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="380" height="126" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yP5oiId6V0s/WXuwwEJq8pI/AAAAAAAAFVA/HVZtYGhBzIIfkH1rR9H5UcQ8LRADkiIPQCLcBGAs/s200/1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Senate Republicans failed to pass a healthcare bill Friday after three senators from the party voted against a "skinny" plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act.&nbsp; <br /><br />Sen.&nbsp;John McCain stunned the political world&nbsp;when he joined two other Republican senators, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, in voting against the bill.<br /><br />On the original motion to proceed, which kicked off 20 hours of debate on the healthcare plan, Collins and Murkowski voted no. McCain had voted in favor of the procedural motion. <br /><br />Here's the rationale each gave for their stance on the healthcare debate.<br /><br /><h2>Susan Collins</h2><br />Going into the week, Collins had repeatedly expressed concerns about the healthcare bill, opposing plans to defund Planned Parenthood, which the Senate's "skinny" bill would have done&nbsp;for one year. <br />Ahead of the vote, Collins expressed concerns with <a href="https://www.collins.senate.gov/newsroom/sen-collins-statement-health-care-vote"> how the debate was going</a>&nbsp;and why she couldn't support the "skinny" bill. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-mccain-collins-murkowski-voted-against-gop-health-care-bill-2017-7?r=UK&amp;IR=T" target="_blank">(Continues)</a><br /><br />Amarissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05981189355159260725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639734320250357117.post-38136261343836230542017-07-10T13:49:00.000-04:002017-07-10T13:49:21.302-04:00Trump Jr. Met With Russian Lawyer After Being Promised Damaging Information on Clinton<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="302" data-total-count="302" id="story-continues-1">President Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., was promised damaging information about <a class="meta-per" href="http://www.nytimes.com/topic/person/hillary-rodham-clinton?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about Hillary Clinton.">Hillary Clinton</a> before agreeing to meet with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer during the 2016 campaign, according to three advisers to the White House briefed on the meeting and two others with knowledge of it.</div><div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="313" data-total-count="615"><br /></div><div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="313" data-total-count="615">The meeting was also attended by the president’s campaign chairman at the time, Paul J. Manafort, as well as by the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Mr. Manafort and Mr. Kushner recently disclosed the meeting, though not its content, in confidential government documents described to The New York Times.</div><div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="149" data-total-count="764"><br /></div><div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="149" data-total-count="764">The Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/08/us/politics/trump-russia-kushner-manafort.html">reported the existence of the meeting</a> on Saturday. But in subsequent interviews, the advisers and others revealed the motivation behind it.</div><div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="149" data-total-count="764"><br /></div><div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="149" data-total-count="764">The meeting — at Trump Tower on June 9, 2016, two weeks after <a class="meta-per" href="http://www.nytimes.com/topic/person/donald-trump?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about Donald J. Trump.">Donald J. Trump</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/27/us/politics/donald-trump-republican-nomination.html">clinched the Republican nomination</a> — points to the central question in federal investigations of the Kremlin’s meddling in the presidential election: whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians. The accounts of the meeting represent the first public indication that at least some in the campaign were willing to accept Russian help.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/09/us/politics/trump-russia-kushner-manafort.html" target="_blank"> (Continues at NYT)</a> </div>Amarissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05981189355159260725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639734320250357117.post-31039105363498488142017-06-30T09:55:00.000-04:002017-06-30T09:58:17.902-04:00Mika Brzezinski Fires Back at TrumpThere has never been a more highly anticipated episode of “poorly rated <i>Morning Joe</i>,” as President Donald Trump calls it, than the one that aired this morning. Co-hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough were supposed to be off on a July 4th vacation, but they changed their plans so they could respond live on air to Trump’s incendiary tweets.<br /><br />As a reminder to anyone who was living under a rock Thursday, the president <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-tweets-mika-was-bleeding-badly-from-a-face-lift">tweeted these comments </a>just as <i>Morning Joe</i> ended, as to ensure they could not respond on television.<br /><br />That gave the co-hosts a full 24 hours to decide exactly how to respond. And after <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/joe-and-mika-trump-is-not-well">putting out an op-ed in <i>The Washington Post</i></a> Friday morning in which they concluded Trump is “not mentally equipped to continue watching our show,” they made viewers wait until the program’s second hour, leaving NBC News’ Willie Geist to inform viewers at 6 a.m. that they would not be there until 7 a.m. to address the situation.<br /><br />“We’re supposed to be on vacation, but we’re here,” Brzezinski said. Instead of going to Boston, she said, “it was me and TMZ and my dogs on the streets.”<br /><br />“It’s been fascinating and frightening and really sad for our country,” Brzezinski added. “I mean, I’ve been getting a lot of texts and hearing you all talking. Thank you. I’m fine. My family brought me up really, really tough. This is absolutely nothing, for me, personally. But I am very concerned as to what this once again reveals about the president of the United States. It’s strange.”<br /><br />Scarborough added that he found it “funny” how many people were calling and texting to see how he and Brzezinski were holding up. “We’re OK,” he said. “The country is not.” When he first saw the tweets, he thought, “This has to be a joke. The president of the United States, as bad as he’s been in the past, he hasn’t really gone over the cliff. Then, unfortunately, we learned what we’ve always learned. And that is that he, for some reason, takes things so much more personally with women. He’s so much more vicious with women.” <br /><br />No matter what Scarborough says about Trump, he always seem to go after Brzezinski instead. “And it’s always personal with Mika,” he said. “And he packed about five lies into the tweets, which very productive—two tweets to pack five or six lies into two tweets—but yesterday was another example of how deeply personal he is. He attacks women because he fears women.” <br /><br />Looking at the “big picture,” Brzezinski noted that her <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/zbigniew-brzezinski-dies-at-89">father just passed away</a>, her mother has had two heart attacks, her daughter just lost a friend. “Those are the things I’m really worried about,” she said. “Those are the things that really deeply impact me, and leave me thinking about at night, and hurting and worrying and thinking about the future. The president’s tweets? Whether they’re personally aimed at me or aimed at me in some way, that doesn’t bother me one bit. It does worry me about the country.”&nbsp; Continues <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/mika-brzezinski-fires-back-at-trump-this-is-sad-for-our-country" target="_blank">at Daily Beast</a>Amarissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05981189355159260725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639734320250357117.post-58778626652501781752017-06-29T17:40:00.000-04:002017-06-29T17:42:29.620-04:00Sarah Huckabee Sander's New LowIf Sarah Huckabee Sanders thought she could get away with the same “this is a president who fights fire with fire” line that she gave Fox News during Thursday afternoon’s White House Press Briefing, she was sorely mistaken.<br /><br />Filling in for White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer for the <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/sarah-huckabee-sanders-escalates-white-house-war-with-cnn">second time this week</a>, Sanders spent most of the briefing struggling to defend President Donald Trump’s <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-tweets-mika-was-bleeding-badly-from-a-face-lift">viciously personal tweets</a> directed at <i>Morning Joe</i> co-hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough.<br /><br />“I think the American people elected somebody who's tough, who's smart, and who's a fighter, and that's Donald Trump,” Sanders said, painting him as the victim of “bullies” in the media who criticize his actions and policies on a daily basis.<br /><br />Sanders would not admit that the tweets were “beneath the dignity of the office.” And she would not say that the president should be held to a “higher standard” than a pair of cable-news hosts.<br /><br />Hallie Jackson, who works with Brzezinski at NBC News, asked an increasingly exasperated Sanders whether she would tell her own children that Trump’s behavior is acceptable. “When it comes to role models, as a person of faith, I think we all have one perfect role model and when I'm asked that question, I point to God,” she said. “I point to my faith and that's where I would tell me kids to look. None of us are perfect and certainly there's only one that is and that's where I would point, that direction.”&nbsp; <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/sarah-huckabee-sanders-hits-new-low-with-trump-tweet-defense" target="_blank">(Full Story at Daily Beast)</a><br /><br /><div class="EmbeddedTweet EmbeddedTweet--edge js-clickToOpenTarget tweet-InformationCircle-widgetParent" data-click-to-open-target="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/880408582310776832" data-dt-abbr="%{number}%{symbol}" data-dt-am="AM" data-dt-full="%{hours12}:%{minutes} %{amPm} - %{day} %{month} %{year}" data-dt-h="h" data-dt-hour="hour" data-dt-hours="hours" data-dt-long="%{day} %{month} %{year}" data-dt-m="m" data-dt-minute="minute" data-dt-minutes="minutes" data-dt-months="Jan|Feb|Mar|Apr|May|Jun|Jul|Aug|Sep|Oct|Nov|Dec" data-dt-now="now" data-dt-pm="PM" data-dt-s="s" data-dt-second="second" data-dt-seconds="seconds" data-dt-short="%{day} %{month}" data-iframe-title="Twitter Tweet" data-scribe="page:tweet" data-twitter-event-id="0" id="twitter-widget-0" lang="en"><div class="EmbeddedTweet-tweet"><blockquote cite="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/880408582310776832" class="Tweet h-entry js-tweetIdInfo subject expanded is-deciderHtmlWhitespace" data-scribe="section:subject" data-tweet-id="880408582310776832"><div class="Tweet-header u-cf"><div class="Tweet-brand u-floatRight"><span class="u-hiddenInNarrowEnv"><a class="FollowButton FollowButton--edge follow-button profile" data-scribe="component:followbutton" href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump" role="button" title="Follow Donald J. Trump on Twitter"><span class="FollowButton-bird"></span></a></span> </div><div class="TweetAuthor " data-scribe="component:author"><a class="TweetAuthor-link Identity u-linkBlend" data-scribe="element:user_link" href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump"> <span class="TweetAuthor-avatar Identity-avatar"> <img alt="" class="Avatar Avatar--edge" data-scribe="element:avatar" data-src-1x="https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/874276197357596672/kUuht00m_normal.jpg" data-src-2x="https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/874276197357596672/kUuht00m_bigger.jpg" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/874276197357596672/kUuht00m_bigger.jpg" /> </span> <span class="TweetAuthor-name Identity-name customisable-highlight" data-scribe="element:name" title="Donald J. Trump">Donald J. Trump</span> <span class="TweetAuthor-verifiedBadge" data-scribe="element:verified_badge"><b class="u-hiddenVisually">✔</b></span> <span class="TweetAuthor-screenName Identity-screenName" data-scribe="element:screen_name" dir="ltr" title="@realDonaldTrump">@realDonaldTrump</span> </a></div></div><div class="Tweet-body e-entry-content" data-scribe="component:tweet"><div class="Tweet-text e-entry-title" dir="ltr" lang="en">I heard poorly rated <a class="PrettyLink profile customisable h-card" data-mentioned-user-id="254117355" data-scribe="element:mention" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/Morning_Joe"><span class="PrettyLink-prefix">@</span><span class="PrettyLink-value">Morning_Joe</span></a> speaks badly of me (don't watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came..</div><div class="Tweet-metadata dateline"><a class="u-linkBlend u-url customisable-highlight long-permalink" data-datetime="2017-06-29T12:52:17+0000" data-scribe="element:full_timestamp" href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/880408582310776832"> <time class="dt-updated" datetime="2017-06-29T12:52:17+0000" pubdate="" title="Time posted: 29 Jun 2017, 12:52:17 (UTC)">8:52 AM - 29 Jun 2017</time></a></div></div></blockquote><br /><div class="EmbeddedTweet EmbeddedTweet--edge js-clickToOpenTarget tweet-InformationCircle-widgetParent" data-click-to-open-target="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/880410114456465411" data-dt-abbr="%{number}%{symbol}" data-dt-am="AM" data-dt-full="%{hours12}:%{minutes} %{amPm} - %{day} %{month} %{year}" data-dt-h="h" data-dt-hour="hour" data-dt-hours="hours" data-dt-long="%{day} %{month} %{year}" data-dt-m="m" data-dt-minute="minute" data-dt-minutes="minutes" data-dt-months="Jan|Feb|Mar|Apr|May|Jun|Jul|Aug|Sep|Oct|Nov|Dec" data-dt-now="now" data-dt-pm="PM" data-dt-s="s" data-dt-second="second" data-dt-seconds="seconds" data-dt-short="%{day} %{month}" data-iframe-title="Twitter Tweet" data-scribe="page:tweet" data-twitter-event-id="1" id="twitter-widget-1" lang="en"><div class="EmbeddedTweet-tweet"><blockquote cite="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/880410114456465411" class="Tweet h-entry js-tweetIdInfo subject expanded is-deciderHtmlWhitespace" data-scribe="section:subject" data-tweet-id="880410114456465411"><div class="Tweet-header u-cf"><div class="Tweet-brand u-floatRight"><span class="u-hiddenInNarrowEnv"><a class="FollowButton FollowButton--edge follow-button profile" data-scribe="component:followbutton" href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump" role="button" title="Follow Donald J. Trump on Twitter"><span class="FollowButton-bird"></span></a></span> </div><div class="TweetAuthor " data-scribe="component:author"><a class="TweetAuthor-link Identity u-linkBlend" data-scribe="element:user_link" href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump"> <span class="TweetAuthor-avatar Identity-avatar"> <img alt="" class="Avatar Avatar--edge" data-scribe="element:avatar" data-src-1x="https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/874276197357596672/kUuht00m_normal.jpg" data-src-2x="https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/874276197357596672/kUuht00m_bigger.jpg" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/874276197357596672/kUuht00m_bigger.jpg" /> </span> <span class="TweetAuthor-name Identity-name customisable-highlight" data-scribe="element:name" title="Donald J. Trump">Donald J. Trump</span> <span class="TweetAuthor-verifiedBadge" data-scribe="element:verified_badge"><b class="u-hiddenVisually">✔</b></span> <span class="TweetAuthor-screenName Identity-screenName" data-scribe="element:screen_name" dir="ltr" title="@realDonaldTrump">@realDonaldTrump</span> </a></div></div><div class="Tweet-body e-entry-content" data-scribe="component:tweet"><div class="Tweet-text e-entry-title" dir="ltr" lang="en">...to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year's Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!</div><div class="Tweet-metadata dateline"><a class="u-linkBlend u-url customisable-highlight long-permalink" data-datetime="2017-06-29T12:58:23+0000" data-scribe="element:full_timestamp" href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/880410114456465411"> <time class="dt-updated" datetime="2017-06-29T12:58:23+0000" pubdate="" title="Time posted: 29 Jun 2017, 12:58:23 (UTC)">8:58 AM - 29 Jun 2017</time></a>&nbsp; </div></div></blockquote></div></div></div></div>Amarissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05981189355159260725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639734320250357117.post-74910236984305253962017-06-10T17:41:00.001-04:002017-06-10T17:41:06.809-04:00Joy Reid: Forget It Paul. It’s Trumptown.Not even six months into his term, for all intents and purposes, Donald Trump’s presidency is dead. <br /><br />Not dead in the sense that he will imminently be run out of office. Republicans have made it clear that there is literally nothing he could do, no matter how destructive, obscene or humiliating to the republic — that would make them remove him. But it is functionally dead, in the sense that the Trump presidency has any moral force at home or abroad (in fact, if you look at rare European Trump friend <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/young-voters-rise-up-to-hobble-brexit-britain">Teresa May’s situation in the UK</a>, it’s quite the opposite), or that the president has the influence or the power to move his political agenda through a Congress that itself is imprisoned by his scandals. Remember “infrastructure week?”<br /><br />Whatever happens from here — whether Robert Mueller finds actual crimes or a criminal cover-up surrounding Russiagate — the man whose entire life has revolved around filling the gaping hole in his psyche with forced praise, vows of loyalty and boasts about “winning” will go down in history as a disastrous fluke, whose ascent to high office resulted from the machinations of a foreign power that manipulated American voters to avenge their hatred of a woman. History will remember him as the most disgraced and scandalized American president of the modern era, eclipsing Richard Nixon and making a damned near success of George W. Bush by comparison. Donald Trump is, by all accounts, an object of global ridicule; reviled around the world with the exception of the capitols of authoritarian regimes and of course, the Kremlin. His own sycophant party defends his misdeeds by declaring him to be almost childlike in his innocence and inability to understand the basics of governance, such that the former director of the FBI had <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/the-return-of-james-comey-patriot">an unprecedented duty</a> to teach a 70-year-old real estate tycoon right from wrong.&nbsp;<br /><br />Trump’s most ardent defenders — his unpleasant sons, when they take time away from from grubbing off his office, his weird hireling Sebastian Gorka and his thuggish former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski — can only talk to his existing fans via Fox News and Breitbart. No one else will have them. His favorite daughter and ineffectual adviser Ivanka is down to securing <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/is-us-weekly-turning-into-a-trump-family-mouthpiece">cover stories in pop culture magazines</a> explaining why she stands both with and against her dad — the better to sell shoes made in Chinese sweatshops to the trendy people who have turned their backs on her. His son-in-law, already talking about escaping back to New York, may be lucky to avoid indictment.<br /><br />However corrupt the men around him were during the campaign — Manafort and Flynn and Page and Sessions and the rest, Trump brought all of this on himself. He hired them. He eagerly benefited from and solicited Russia’s aid in tarring his presidential opponent, Hillary Clinton, even to the point of publicly encouraging Russian hacking. His Twitter attack on Jim Comey is what prompted Comey to release his notes from their bizarre meetings in hopes of triggering the appointment of a special prosecutor. His continued attacks on Comey, including his personal lawyer’s attempt to sic the Justice Department on the fired FBI director, on top of the firing itself, could hand that prosecutor evidence of obstruction of justice and abuse of power. We may yet get to witness the spectacle of a president pardoning his cronies, and then himself.<br /><br />Of course, presidencies have been declared dead in their first year before. Bill Clinton had a hell of a first 24 months, even though he, like Trump, enjoyed a congressional majority. Scandal after scandal befell the White House, including the failure of Hillary Clinton-led healthcare reform. But Clinton’s scandals, from “filegate” to “travelgate” to a brouhaha over a haircut, were petty, personal and domestic. The Whitewater affair that metastasized into a romp through the president’s sex life was transparently a Republican witch-hunt that the public easily saw through. Clinton didn’t have the cloud of collusion with a foreign power and the fundamental questions of legitimacy that hang over Trump’s head. <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/forget-it-paul-its-trumptown" target="_blank">(Continues) </a>Amarissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05981189355159260725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639734320250357117.post-86328791308791302072017-06-02T13:31:00.000-04:002017-06-02T13:31:01.829-04:00Historic Newspaper Cover<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-42zua6s-DjQ/WTGgScRlQtI/AAAAAAAAFUw/MdyMGkgXUNE8QBLPoNrupNS3ceRnc3GfACLcB/s1600/cover-front-0602.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="397" data-original-width="350" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-42zua6s-DjQ/WTGgScRlQtI/AAAAAAAAFUw/MdyMGkgXUNE8QBLPoNrupNS3ceRnc3GfACLcB/s320/cover-front-0602.jpg" width="282" /></a></div><br />Amarissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05981189355159260725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639734320250357117.post-56108678216708189002017-05-18T12:18:00.000-04:002017-05-18T12:18:14.455-04:00TIME Magazine latest cover!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wqbC_kfM0Xc/WR3Ik5EU2wI/AAAAAAAAFUc/a2rhfXUd1WsDMzN1h5dDZobzZu14JDktgCLcB/s1600/russia-cover-final-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wqbC_kfM0Xc/WR3Ik5EU2wI/AAAAAAAAFUc/a2rhfXUd1WsDMzN1h5dDZobzZu14JDktgCLcB/s320/russia-cover-final-2.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br />Time magazine on Thursday published a stunning illustration on its cover for the May 29th issue, depicting the White House mutating into a Kremlin-like building, featuring the distinctive onion domes and red brick of Russia's Saint Basil's Cathedral.<br /><br /> The cover accompanies a story detailing White House officials' struggles to contain and respond to multiple Russia-related controversies. <br /> <br />The issue&nbsp;also follows several explosive news reports published over the last week involving the Trump administration's ongoing controversies involving Russia, including The Washington Post's <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-revealed-highly-classified-information-to-russian-foreign-minister-and-ambassador/2017/05/15/530c172a-3960-11e7-9e48-c4f199710b69_story.html"> report</a> on Monday that President Trump had shared highly classified information with two top Russian officials in an Oval Office meeting last week, just one day before Trump <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/james-comey-fired-fbi-trump-2017-5"> fired</a> FBI Director James Comey, who was investigating Russian interference in the US presidential election.<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/time-magazine-cover-shows-trumps-white-house-transforming-into-the-kremlin-2017-5" target="_blank">(Continues)</a><br />Amarissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05981189355159260725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639734320250357117.post-83982840988103643632017-05-15T19:40:00.000-04:002017-05-15T19:40:25.463-04:00Trump revealed highly classified information to RussiaPresident Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting last week, according to current and former U.S. officials, who said that Trump’s disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State.<br /> <br />The information Trump relayed had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government, officials said. <br /><br />The partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russia, and officials said that Trump’s decision to do so risks cooperation from an ally that has access to the inner workings of the Islamic State. After Trump’s meeting, senior White House officials took steps to contain the damage, placing calls to the CIA and National Security Agency.<br /><br />“This is code-word information,” said a U.S. official familiar with the matter, using terminology that refers to one of the highest classification levels used by American spy agencies. Trump “revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies.”<br /><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-revealed-highly-classified-information-to-russian-foreign-minister-and-ambassador/2017/05/15/530c172a-3960-11e7-9e48-c4f199710b69_story.html?utm_term=.887989763f34" target="_blank">(Continues at WaPo) </a>Amarissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05981189355159260725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639734320250357117.post-20448742326324151002017-05-07T14:39:00.001-04:002017-05-07T14:39:36.441-04:00Macron wins in France by decisive margin <div dir="ltr">French voters handed Emmanuel Macron, the independent candidate, a decisive victory in the presidential runoff Sunday over Marine Le Pen, the far-right candidate, buoying Europe’s political establishment that had watched with despair as populist movements threatened to derail the European experiment.</div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr">Macron, 39<strong>, </strong>who had all but been endorsed by Europe’s leaders after his first-round victory on April 23, earned 65.5 percent of the vote, according to <a data-omni-click="r'article',r'link',r'0',r'525390'" href="https://twitter.com/IfopOpinion/status/861279546120839170">early exit polls</a>; Le Pen won 34.5 percent—slightly higher than polls had predicted. The polls projected Macron would win approximately 64 percent of the vote. Voter turnout was 74 percent by the time polls closed at 8 p.m. local time, markedly lower than the 80 percent that turned out in 2012. Approximately 4 million blank votes were cast.</div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr">Not only is Macron the youngest president in French history (he’s a year younger than Louis-Napoléon, Napoléon Bonaparte’s nephew, who was 40 when he was elected in 1848), he is also the first president in modern French history who does not belong to a major political party. Despite briefly serving as economy minister under outgoing Socialist President François Hollande, Macron quit the government in August 2016 to launch his own independent party, <em>En Marche!</em>, which he said aimed to “reconcile the two Frances that have been growing apart for too long.” <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/05/macron-wins-french-election-2017/525390/" target="_blank">(Continues)</a></div>Amarissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05981189355159260725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639734320250357117.post-7373997877245635392017-04-28T13:34:00.000-04:002017-04-28T13:34:05.083-04:00U.S. first-quarter growth weakest in three years <span id="article-text"><span class="article-prime"></span></span><br />The U.S. economy grew at its weakest pace in three years in the first quarter as consumer spending barely increased and businesses invested less on inventories, in a potential setback to President Donald Trump's promise to boost growth.<br /><span id="midArticle_1"></span><br />Gross domestic product increased at a 0.7 percent annual rate also as the government cut back on defense spending, the Commerce Department said on Friday. That was the weakest performance since the first quarter of 2014.<br /><span id="midArticle_2"></span><br />The economy grew at a 2.1 percent pace in the fourth quarter. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast GDP rising at a 1.2 percent pace last quarter. The survey was, however, conducted before Thursday's advance data on the March goods trade deficit and inventories, which saw many economists lowering their first-quarter growth estimates.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy-idUSKBN17U0EL" target="_blank"> (Continues)</a><br />Amarissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05981189355159260725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639734320250357117.post-37834904081517001322017-03-19T14:55:00.001-04:002017-03-19T14:55:58.872-04:00Maureen Dowd: Trump, Working-Class Zero<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="30" data-total-count="30">It’s not unknown, of course.</div><div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="147" data-total-count="177"><br /></div><div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="147" data-total-count="177">In ancient Egypt, there was the symbol of the ouroboros, the snake that eats its own tail. Nerve-addled octopuses sometimes consume their own arms.</div><div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="76" data-total-count="253">But we’ve never watched a president so hungrily devour his own presidency.</div><div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="75" data-total-count="328">Soon, there won’t be anything left except the sound of people snickering.</div><div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="227" data-total-count="555"><br /></div><div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="227" data-total-count="555">Consumed by his paranoia about the deep state, Donald Trump has disappeared into the fog of his own conspiracy theories. As he rages in the storm, Lear-like, howling about poisonous fake news, he is spewing poisonous fake news.</div><div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="223" data-total-count="778"><br /></div><div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="223" data-total-count="778">The Hirshhorn has a sold-out exhibit of Yayoi Kusama’s stunning infinity mirror rooms. But they are nothing compared to the infinity mirror room of Trump’s mind, now on display a mile and a half away at the White House.</div><div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="223" data-total-count="778"><br /></div><div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="330" data-total-count="1108" id="story-continues-2">Many voters who took a chance on the real estate mogul and reality TV star hoped he would grow more mature and centered when confronted with the august surroundings of the White House and immensity of the job. But instead of improving in office, Trump is regressing. The office has not changed Trump. Trump has changed the office.</div><div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="153" data-total-count="1261" id="story-continues-3"><br /></div><div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="153" data-total-count="1261" id="story-continues-3">He trusts his beliefs more than facts. So many secrets, so many plots, so many shards of gossip swirl in his head, there seems to be no room for reality.</div><div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="282" data-total-count="1543"><br /></div><div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="282" data-total-count="1543">His grandiosity, insularity and scamming have persuaded Trump to believe he can mold his own world. His distrust of the deep state, elites and eggheads — an insecurity inflamed by Steve Bannon — makes it hard for him to trust his own government, or his own government’s facts.&nbsp; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/18/opinion/sunday/trump-working-class-zero.html?_r=0" target="_blank">(Continues)</a></div><div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="223" data-total-count="778"><br /></div>Amarissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05981189355159260725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639734320250357117.post-57781417411231370562017-02-12T15:22:00.000-05:002017-02-12T15:22:59.768-05:00Hillary Clinton to run for the White House one more time. Hillary Clinton will run for president. Again. <br /><br />No inside information informs this prediction. No argument is advanced as to whether her run is a good or a bad idea—there are many ways to make a case either way. Instead this is just a statement of simple facts (if facts mean anything anymore, that is). And the facts are clear that the former secretary of state is doing everything she needs to do to run for the White House one more time. If she finds a path to do so, she will take it. And I can prove it.<br /><br />Consider. Shortly after Clinton’s shock-the-world, hysteria-inducing defeat last November, the Clinton Global Initiative announced plans to cease operations. The CGI—the most scandal-plagued arm of the Clinton Foundation—was a ground zero of grief for the Clinton campaign. Labeled a slush fund for political operations, paid for by foreign governments, it was an endless and easy target of complaints about conflicts of interest and graft. Yet despite pleas to do so by various supporters throughout the 2016 campaign, the Clintons time and again refused to shut it down. Which raises the question: What advantage, other than a political one, is there to doing so now?&nbsp;<br /><br />Similarly, why did the Clintons allow rumors to circulate—rumors they still haven’t officially quashed—that the former secretary of state was/is/might be considering a run for mayor of New York City? For the thrill of it? Out of spite toward the current mayor, who supported her candidacy for the White House? Or might there be another reason to keep alive the idea that Hillary Clinton’s political fortunes aren’t in the rear-view mirror?<br /> <br />This month, Clinton signed a book deal with Simon &amp; Schuster. That alone isn’t noteworthy. This, after all, would be her <i>seventh</i> book, if you count her campaign <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/book-party/wp/2016/09/16/the-new-clintonkaine-campaign-book-is-just-deplorable/?utm_term=.aa90539d8cd6" target="_blank">policy venture</a>/insomnia cure, <i>Stronger Together</i>. But added to all the other activities afoot, it raises a few questions. Does she really have <i>that</i> much more to say? Or might there be another reason, besides money that she does not need, to go on a book tour, answer humiliating questions about losing to Donald Trump and stay in the headlines?<br /> <br />And just days ago, Clinton trolled Trump on Twitter over the courtroom defeat of his executive order banning citizens from seven majority-Muslim nations. She didn’t have to do that, of course. Most defeated rivals disappear after their loss. Instead, Clinton sounded very much like she was still on the campaign trail. (Because, of course, she is.) <br /> <br />Finally, consider last November’s concession speech to Trump. Absent in her remarks was any indication, as one might have expected, that she was going gentle into that good night, handing the baton to a new generation or even to a new leader. Instead, Clinton talked more about the future—explicitly including herself in that future—than she did about the past. <br /> “I know we have still not shattered that highest and hardest glass ceiling, but someday, someone will,” she said, adding, “and hopefully sooner than we might think right now.” She then quoted a line of Scripture: “Let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season, we shall reap if we do not lose heart.” And she concluded, tellingly, with this: “So my friends, let us have faith in each other, let us not grow weary, let us not lose heart, for there are more seasons to come. And there is more work to do.” <br /> <br />This was not Richard Nixon’s bitter “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore” when he lost a race for governor in 1962 and thought his political career was over. This was someone looking ahead. More seasons to come.<a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/02/hillary-clinton-is-running-for-president-again-214766" target="_blank">(Continues at POLITICO)</a>Amarissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05981189355159260725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639734320250357117.post-57625471054081408282017-02-08T11:48:00.001-05:002017-02-08T11:48:58.486-05:00GOP Silences Elizabeth Warren for Quoting Coretta Scott King. Read full letter<div class="column small-12 medium-10 medium-offset-1 large-offset-2 end cBvvt_9E" data-reactid="250"><blockquote class="_3tVKAEcj" data-reactid="251"><div data-reactid="252">Dear Senator Thurmond:</div><div data-reactid="253">I write to express my sincere opposition to the confirmation of Jefferson B. Sessions as a federal district court judge for the Southern District of Alabama. My professional and personal roots in Alabama are deep and lasting. Anyone who has used the power of his office as United States Attorney to intimidate and chill the free exercise of the ballot by citizens should not be elevated to our courts. Mr. Sessions has used the awesome powers of his office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters. For this reprehensible conduct, he should not be rewarded with a federal judgeship.</div><div data-reactid="254">I regret that a long-standing commitment prevents me from appearing in person to testify against this nominee. However, I have attached a copy of my statement opposing Mr. Sessions’ confirmation and I request that my statement as well as this be made a part of the hearing record.</div><div data-reactid="255">I do sincerely urge you to oppose the confirmation of Mr. Sessions.</div><div data-reactid="256">Sincerely,</div><div data-reactid="257">Coretta Scott King</div></blockquote>Quoting King technically put Warren in violation of Senate rules for "impugning the motives" of Sessions, though senators have said far worse. And Warren was reading from a letter that was written 10 years before Sessions was even elected to the Senate.<br /><div class="column small-12 medium-10 medium-offset-1 large-offset-2 _10M0Ygc4" data-reactid="236"><br /></div><div class="column small-12 medium-10 medium-offset-1 large-offset-2 _10M0Ygc4" data-reactid="236">Still, top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell invoked the rules. After a few parliamentary moves, the GOP-controlled Senate voted to back him up.</div><div class="column small-12 medium-10 medium-offset-1 large-offset-2 _10M0Ygc4" data-reactid="238"><br /></div><div class="column small-12 medium-10 medium-offset-1 large-offset-2 _10M0Ygc4" data-reactid="238">Now, Warren is forbidden from speaking again on Sessions' nomination. A vote on Sessions is expected Wednesday evening.</div><div class="column small-12 medium-10 medium-offset-1 large-offset-2 _10M0Ygc4" data-reactid="240"><br /></div><div class="column small-12 medium-10 medium-offset-1 large-offset-2 _10M0Ygc4" data-reactid="240">Democrats seized on the flap to charge that Republicans were muzzling Warren, sparking liberals to take to Twitter to post the King letter in its entirety.</div>Warren argued: "I'm reading a letter from Coretta Scott King to the Judiciary Committee from 1986 that was admitted into the record. I'm simply reading what she wrote about what the nomination of Jeff Sessions to be a federal court judge meant and what it would mean in history for her." <a href="http://time.com/4663578/elizabeth-warren-jeff-sessions-coretta-scott-king-senate/" target="_blank">(Continues at Time)</a><br /></div>Amarissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05981189355159260725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639734320250357117.post-53927969839292114562017-02-05T12:47:00.000-05:002017-02-05T12:47:40.161-05:00Next 2 years put aside personal differences. Focus on Democrats taking back Congress in 2018! <div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text">Reality tells us the only way to ensure we stop <em>Trump</em> in the long run, unless he is impeached, is to elect a Democratic Congress in 2018. We can and should continue to march and protest but that must lead to organizing and electing Democrats. The first step is ensuring we keep the <em>Virginia</em> governorship and retake the governor’s office in <em>New Jersey</em> in 2017. </div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text"> <br />To do this we need to stop fighting each other and one way to do that is to stop demanding perfection in our candidates. That is what led to the election of Donald Trump. The <em>Susan Sarandon’s </em>and <em>Ralph Nader’s </em>of the world who by their stupidity and short-sightedness supported third party candidates must take some responsibility for Trump being in the <em>White House</em>. Sarandon had the unmitigated gall to <a data-beacon="{&quot;p&quot;:{&quot;mnid&quot;:&quot;entry_text&quot;,&quot;lnid&quot;:&quot;citation&quot;,&quot;mpid&quot;:1,&quot;plid&quot;:&quot;https://twitter.com/susansarandon&quot;}}" href="https://twitter.com/susansarandon" rel="nofollow" target="_hplink">tweet </a>after the women’s march telling Cher to keep protesting after she told everyone she thinks Clinton is <a data-beacon="{&quot;p&quot;:{&quot;mnid&quot;:&quot;entry_text&quot;,&quot;lnid&quot;:&quot;citation&quot;,&quot;mpid&quot;:2,&quot;plid&quot;:&quot;susan_sarandon_hillary_clinton_more_dangerous_than_donald_trump/&quot;}}" href="http://www.salon.com/2016/06/03/susan_sarandon_hillary_clinton_more_dangerous_than_donald_trump/" rel="nofollow" target="_hplink">more dangerous</a> than Trump.<br /><br />For the next two years we need to get all Democrats and Independent voters who lean Democratic to eschew voting for any third Party candidate if we are to take back the Congress in 2018. Let us accept a Democrat who can win in <em>Mississippi</em> will not run with a focus on the same issues as a Democratic candidate running in <em>New York City</em>. But we need to recognize even the most imperfect Democrat, at least imperfect according to a progressive from an ultra-blue state, once elected to Congress will cast their first vote for a Democratic <em>Speaker of the House</em> or a Democratic <em>Majority Leader </em>in the Senate. That will give Democrats control of the agenda and committees and is the only way we will stop Trump and his Rasputin, <em>Steve Bannon</em>.<br /><br />That has to be our goal for 2018. We need to stop the internecine fights in order to do that. Blowhards like <em>Michael Moore</em> who is <a data-beacon="{&quot;p&quot;:{&quot;mnid&quot;:&quot;entry_text&quot;,&quot;lnid&quot;:&quot;citation&quot;,&quot;mpid&quot;:4,&quot;plid&quot;:&quot;http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/critics-notebook-womens-march-washington-makes-history-fox-news-967054&quot;}}" href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/critics-notebook-womens-march-washington-makes-history-fox-news-967054" rel="nofollow" target="_hplink">calling</a> for a political revolution and spoke at the <em>Women’s March on Washington</em>, before they cut his mic off, saying he will help primary already elected Democrats he doesn’t agree with will only help Republicans win in marginal Districts.&nbsp; <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-d-rosenstein/stop-bannon-and-his-puppe_b_14629490.html" target="_blank">(Continues @ HuffPost)</a></div>Amarissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05981189355159260725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639734320250357117.post-78342408755757106472017-01-21T16:41:00.000-05:002017-01-21T16:41:18.643-05:00Hundreds of thousands of women around the world march against Trump!<span class="entry-content"></span><br /><div class="ap-story-p"> WASHINGTON (AP) -- Wearing pink, pointy-eared "pussyhats" to mock the new president, hundreds of thousands of women took to the streets in the nation's capital and cities around the world Saturday to send Donald Trump an emphatic message that they won't let his agenda go unchallenged over the next four years.</div><div class="ap-story-p"><br /></div><div class="ap-story-p">"We march today for the moral core of this nation, against which our new president is waging a war," actress America Ferrera told the Washington crowd, which included plenty of men, too. "Our dignity, our character, our rights have all been under attack, and a platform of hate and division assumed power yesterday. But the president is not America. ... We are America, and we are here to stay."</div><div class="ap-story-p"><br /></div><div class="ap-story-p">The message reverberated through a remarkable collection of outsized demonstrations around the globe - from New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Los Angeles to Paris, Berlin, London, Prague, Sydney and beyond. It all served to underscore the degree to which Trump has unsettled people in every hemisphere.</div><div class="ap-story-p"><br /></div><div class="ap-story-p">Turnout in Washington was so big that the original march route alongside the National Mall was impassable. Instead of trekking en masse to the Ellipse near the White House as planned, protesters were told to head there by way of other streets. And with that, throngs surged in the direction of the White House in a chaotic scene that snarled downtown Washington.</div><div class="ap-story-p"><br /></div><div class="ap-story-p">"Hey, hey, ho, ho, Donald trump has got to go," some marchers chanted.</div><div class="ap-story-p"><br /></div><div class="ap-story-p">Women brandished signs with slogans such as "Women won't back down" and "Less fear more love" and decried Trump's stand on such issues as abortion, health care, gay rights, diversity and climate change. In a five-hour-plus program, speaker after speaker branded Trump a sexist, a bully, a bigot and more.</div><div class="ap-story-p"><br /></div><div class="ap-story-p"><span class="entry-content"></span></div><div class="ap-story-p">In Chicago, organizers canceled the march portion of their event for safety reasons after the overflow crowd reached an estimated 150,000. In New York, tens of thousands converged on Trump's home at the glittering Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue.</div><div class="ap-story-p"><br /></div><div class="ap-story-p">"I feel very optimistic even though it's a miserable moment," said Madeline Schwartzman of New York City, who brought her twin 13-year-old daughters to the Washington rally. "I feel power."</div><div class="ap-story-p">Officials said the crowd in Washington could be more than half a million people, more than double expectations. The event appeared to have attracted more people than Trump's inauguration on Friday, based on figures from transportation officials.</div><div class="ap-story-p"><br /></div><div class="ap-story-p">More than 600 "sister marches" were planned around the world. Organizers estimated 3 million people would march worldwide. <a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TRUMP_INAUGURATION_PROTESTS_MDOL-?SITE=AP&amp;SECTION=HOME&amp;TEMPLATE=DEFAULT" target="_blank">(continues at Associated Press)</a></div><br /><br />Amarissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05981189355159260725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639734320250357117.post-42016066273149243422017-01-18T18:02:00.000-05:002017-01-18T18:02:24.198-05:00Excelent open letter to Trump from the US press corps<strong>Dear Mr. President Elect:</strong><br /> In these final days before your inauguration, we thought it might be helpful to clarify how we see the relationship between your administration and the American press corps.<br /> <br />It will come as no surprise to you that we see the relationship as strained. Reports over the last few days that your press secretary is considering pulling news media offices out of the White House are the latest in a pattern of behavior that has persisted throughout the campaign: You’ve banned news organizations from covering you. <a href="http://www.cjr.org/analysis/trump_twitter_media_journalism.php?link" target="_blank">You’ve taken to Twitter</a> to taunt and threaten individual reporters and encouraged your supporters to do the same. You’ve <a href="http://www.cjr.org/united_states_project/donald_trump_lawsuits_press_freedom.php?link" target="_blank">advocated for looser libel laws</a> and <a href="http://www.cjr.org/first_person/donald_trump_lawsuit_new_york_times.php?link" target="_blank">threatened numerous lawsuits</a> of your own, none of which has materialized. You’ve avoided the press when you could and flouted the norms of pool reporting and regular press conferences. You’ve ridiculed a reporter who wrote something you didn’t like because he has a disability.<br /><br />All of this, of course, is your choice and, in a way, your right. While the Constitution protects the freedom of the press, it doesn’t dictate how the president must honor that; regular press conferences aren’t enshrined in the document.<br /> <br />But while you have every right to decide your ground rules for engaging with the press, we have some, too. It is, after all, our airtime and column inches that you are seeking to influence. We, not you, decide how best to serve our readers, listeners, and viewers. So think of what follows as a backgrounder on what to expect from us over the next four years.<br /><br /><strong>Access is preferable, but not critical.</strong> You may decide that giving reporters access to your administration has no upside. We think that would be a mistake on your part, but again, it’s your choice. We are very good at finding alternative ways to get information; indeed, some of the <a href="http://www.cjr.org/special_report/trump_media_press_journalists.php?Link">best reporting during the campaign</a>&nbsp;came from news organizations that were banned from your rallies. Telling reporters that they won’t get access to something isn’t what we’d prefer, but it’s a challenge we relish.<br /> <br /><strong>Off the record and other ground rules are ours—not yours—to set. </strong>We may agree to speak to some of your officials off the record, or we may not. We may attend background briefings or off-the-record social events, or we may skip them. That’s our choice. If you think reporters who don’t agree to the rules, and are shut out, won’t get the story, see above.<br /> <br /><strong>We decide how much airtime to give your spokespeople and surrogates.</strong> We will strive to get your point of view across, even if you seek to shut us out. But that does not mean we are required to turn our airwaves or column inches over to people who repeatedly distort or bend the truth. We will call them out when they do, and we reserve the right, in the most egregious cases, to ban them from our outlets.<br /><br /><strong>We believe there is an objective truth, and we will hold you to that.</strong> When you or your surrogates say or tweet something that is demonstrably wrong, we will say so, repeatedly. Facts are what we do, and we have no obligation to repeat false assertions; the fact that you or someone on your team said them is newsworthy, but so is the fact that they don’t stand up to scrutiny. Both aspects should receive equal weight.<br /> <br /><strong>We’ll obsess over the details of government.</strong> You and your staff sit in the White House, but the American government is a sprawling thing. We will fan reporters out across the government, embed them in your agencies, source up those bureaucrats. The result will be that while you may seek to control what comes out of the West Wing, we’ll have the upper hand in covering how your policies are carried out.<br /> <br /><strong>We will set higher standards for ourselves than ever before.</strong> We credit you with highlighting serious and widespread distrust in the media across the political spectrum. Your campaign tapped into that, and it was a bracing wake-up call for us. We have to regain that trust. And we’ll do it through accurate, fearless reporting, by acknowledging our errors and abiding by the most stringent ethical standards we set for ourselves.<br /><br /><strong>We’re going to work together.</strong> You have tried to divide us and use reporters’ deep competitive streaks to cause family fights. Those days are ending. We now recognize that the challenge of covering you<strong> </strong>requires that we cooperate and help one another whenever possible. So, when you shout down or ignore a reporter at a press conference who has said something you don’t like, you’re going to face a unified front. We’ll work together on stories when it makes sense, and make sure the world hears when our colleagues write stories of importance. We will, of course, still have disagreements, and even important debates, about ethics or taste or fair comment. But those debates will be ours to begin and end.<br /> <br /><strong>We’re playing the long game.</strong> Best-case scenario, you’re going to be in this job for eight years. We’ve been around since the founding of the republic, and our role in this great democracy has been ratified and reinforced again and again and again. You have forced us to rethink the most fundamental questions about who we are and what we are here for. For that we are most grateful.<br /> <br />Enjoy your inauguration.<br /> <em>—The Press Corps</em><br /><br /><em><a href="http://www.cjr.org/covering_trump/trump_white_house_press_corps.php" target="_blank">Link to site</a> </em><br /><br /><br />Amarissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05981189355159260725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639734320250357117.post-59913526994201305452017-01-06T19:44:00.000-05:002017-01-06T19:44:35.062-05:00U.S. intelligence report: Putin targeted election to 'harm' Hillary Clinton's chances Russian President <a href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/government/heads-of-state/vladimir-putin-PEPLT007593-topic.html" id="PEPLT007593" title="Vladimir Putin">Vladimir Putin</a> personally ordered an intelligence operation against the U.S. presidential campaign and ultimately sought to help <a href="http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-na-all-things-trump" id="PEBSL000163" title="Donald Trump">Donald Trump</a> win the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/government/white-house-PLCUL000110-topic.html" id="PLCUL000110" title="White House">White House</a>, according to a new U.S. intelligence report released Friday, shortly after the president-elect appeared to dismiss its key findings.<br /><br />Putin both “aspired to help” Trump in November and to “harm” Trump’s rival, Democratic nominee and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, with leaks of pilfered emails and other covert activities, the report concludes in a dramatic expansion of official U.S. accusations against the Kremlin.<br /><br />The report depicts the Russian operation as unprecedented, saying that an aggressive mix of digital thefts and leaks, fake news and propaganda represented “a significant escalation in directness, level of activity, and scope of effort” against a U.S. election campaign.<br /><br />Moscow’s goals “were to undermine public faith in the U.S.&nbsp;democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency,” the report states. “We further assess Putin and the Russian government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.” <a href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-trump-russia-20170106-story.html" target="_blank">(Continues at LA Times)</a><br />Amarissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05981189355159260725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639734320250357117.post-36333492363014174772017-01-06T18:54:00.000-05:002017-01-06T18:54:14.903-05:00Third lien on Trump hotelWorkers from AES Electrical apparently went all out to make sure Donald Trump could open his luxury hotel on the day he wanted.<br /> <br />In the frenzied final six weeks of work at the hotel, while Trump touted the project on the campaign trail, AES of Laurel, Md., claims&nbsp;it assigned 45 members of its staff&nbsp;to work 12-hour shifts for nearly 50 consecutive days to get the lights, electrical and fire systems prepared on time.<br /> <br />“We had people there well over 12 hours a day for weeks because they had a hard opening of Sept. 12 and you can’t open if the lights don’t work and the fire alarms don’t work and the fire marshal can’t inspect it,” said Tim Miller, executive vice president of AES.&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: 400;">“There is a lot of work that went into that hotel, and it didn’t happen by accident.”</span><br /> <br />Trump got his wish: The hotel was ready enough that on Sept. 16 he held a campaign event there honoring veterans, which was carried live on national television. He touted the hotel as having been completed “under budget and ahead of schedule” and said that when it opened officially the following month it would be “one of the great hotels anywhere in the world.”<br /> <br />But around the same time, Miller said, the Trump Organization and its construction manager, Lendlease, stopped paying AES. Three days before Christmas, AES&nbsp;filed a mechanic’s lien with the D.C. government&nbsp;alleging that it was out almost&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: 400;">$2.1 million. “Merry Christmas and a happy new year to us,” Miller said.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: 400;">The AES filing brings the total of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/digger/wp/2017/01/05/two-contractors-allege-getting-stiffed-for-work-on-trumps-d-c-hotel/?utm_term=.e586eaf00034">allegedly unpaid bills</a> on the hotel to more than $5 million. Washington-area plumbing firm Joseph J. Magnolia Inc. and Northern Virginia construction company,&nbsp;A&amp;D Construction, are seeking $2.98 million and&nbsp;$79,700 respectively. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/digger/wp/2017/01/06/third-lien-on-trump-hotel-brings-alleged-unpaid-bills-to-over-5-million/?postshare=1211483732803018&amp;tid=ss_tw&amp;utm_term=.6e42cab3a6ba" target="_blank">(Continues at WaPo)</a> </span>Amarissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05981189355159260725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639734320250357117.post-85803169699747577442016-11-24T14:43:00.001-05:002016-11-24T14:43:39.369-05:00Sign Petition! Jill Stein raises $2.5 million for ballot recounts Politicians across the country are calling for ballot recounts in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in light of&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/election-results-hacked-3-states-trump-won-article-1.2884089" target="_blank">reports of potential voting machine manipulation</a>.<br /> <br />And the seemingly overzealous prospect became tangible early Thursday as Green Party candidate Jill Stein announced that her campaign had raised the $2.5 million necessary to file for audits in the three Rust Belt states.<br /> <br />Stein’s camp launched the&nbsp;<a href="https://jillstein.nationbuilder.com/recount" target="_blank">“#RECOUNT2016” fundraiser</a> Wednesday, as Hillary Clinton's popular vote lead against Donald Trump surpassed 2 million. Less than 24 hours later, the Green Party nominee’s fundraiser had smashed the monetary glass ceiling.<br /><br />“These recounts are part of an election integrity movement to attempt to shine a light on just how untrustworthy the U.S. election system is,” Stein said in <a href="http://www.jill2016.com/recountpr" target="_blank">a statement</a> announcing the initiative.<br /><br />The Green Party nominee’s successful fund-raiser comes a week after a prominent group of election lawyers and computer scientists informed the Hillary Clinton campaign that they had found something fishy about voter turnouts in the three hotly contested swing states. <br /><br /> For instance, Clinton’s vote count in Wisconsin precincts that used electronic machines was down 7% as compared to counties that relied on paper ballots. The group has not presented any tangible evidence for voting machine fraud, but said the suspicious findings are enough for an independent review.<br /> <br />The report prompted a massive social media response, and over 180,000 people had signed an<br /><br /><a href="https://www.change.org/p/demand-an-audit-of-the-2016-presidential-election" target="_blank">“audit the vote” petition</a> by early Thursday.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/stein-raises-2-5-million-ballot-recounts-states-article-1.2885983" target="_blank">(Continues) </a><br />Amarissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05981189355159260725noreply@blogger.com0